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Ten years ago the communist form of rule ceased to exist in our
country: the central committees, regional and district party committees
and the communist government.
The conspiracy of the top Soviet officials, which was called
a “putch”, was quickly transformed into a farce and lost all meaning
without any great effort within two or three days.
After almost 80 years Russia forever rid itself of communist
rule: that is the historic importance of those days in August.
Dozens of millions of people honestly supported the transformations,
placing great hopes in them.
Three citizens of Russia gave up their lives for them on those
days.
A great deal has changed since those days, but we have failed
to establish a stable foundation for democracy in Russia.
In fact the opposite is true: the feeling that there are freedoms
and human rights, personal dignity and equal opportunities experienced
by the people at the end of the 1980s, again rapidly vanished.
State policy, both in style and often in content, is often reminiscent
of the ideas and slogans of the GKChP (Ed. the State Committee
for Emergency has quickly become a mocking acronym for conspiracy),
that the failure putch-leaders have begun talking about with approval
and enthusiasm at their press conferences. At Vagankov cemetery
they will officially commemorate under the USSR national anthem
those who were killed in August 1991.
For ten years every decent, and especially indecent, citizens
has gone on and on about democracy in Russia.š The statements
on their democratic stance have become an entry ticket for those
who wanted to travel abroad and be received in decent society:
politicians, oligarchs, political scientists, bureaucrats, top
officials and grass-root bureaucrats and GKChP members.
However, for us, Russian citizens, it would constitute an act
of self-deceit to believe that democracy has already emerged in
Russia.
The disappearance of a formally communist government in August
1991 is only one of the many prerequisites for the emergence of
democracy in Russia. Others unfortunately did not happen.
Democracy is not a system or a doctrine. It is not even a teaching
that can be taught, learned and that one can be converted to.
Democracy is not a victory or a result achieved on one occasion:
it is a task that has to be resolved again and again.
This is a way of thinking, a way of life that you can only assume
when you live accordingly, starting with personal relations right
up to interstate relations.
Our “cool politicians” and “people of action” who want to finally
install “order” in the country and adopt “strong” decisions, now
cynically wring their noses from all this “chat”. And again, already
in the 21st century, almost like during 80 years of Soviet rule,
they curse the democrats who only speak and do not act.
However, without any dialogue or attempt to achieve mutual understanding
and respect, without this essence of democracy, the deeds of our
democratic politicians in power “posing as liberals”, culminated
in the bloody war in the Northern Caucasus, which has neither
end, nor sense, and periodic onslaughts of severe economic crisis,
that led to the general pauperisation and bankruptcy of the emerging
class of Russian entrepreneurs. These are the deeds they are so
proud of.
But surely there have been formal procedures, for example, elections
and voting, the new Constitution, when all is said and done?!
The voting, either via elections or votes in the Duma, are based
on sheer propaganda and manipulation of the masses and fraud,
rather than discussions and comparison of points of view – this
has nothing to do with real democracy. The same holds true for
actual voting tactics deployed with the majority. The point of
view of such a manipulated majority is correct only in so far
as there are more of them and their decisions are implemented
forcibly.
Power and money make one respect them. People cannot resist success.
Many people admired Mussolini and Hitler in the 1920s and 1930s.
Didn’t they make trains run on time, didn’t they liquidate unemployment
and create stability on the markets? Didn’t European intellectuals
applaud Stalin’s Constitution as the most democratic in the world?
But how did it all end…
We continue to think that the strongest are always right and
the fattest are the cleverest. There are no such democracies.
We have made almost no progress since August 1991.
There is nothing to be happy about. However, this is food for
thought.
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